hi,
i have had trouble using the footstraps on my 88 litre the way i was tuaght was all your weight through your front foot and gradduly shuffle into the straps this teqnuiqe has worked on boards 100 litre plus but dosnt work on my smaller kit.
cheers jack

How much do you weigh & what size sail are you using and in what wind condtions? Do you have single or double straps on the back of both boards?

Roger will be along to offer some help, but in the mean time, here are my thoughts. It's my experience that there is little difference between my 105 L board and my 85 L board when it comes to getting into the straps.

The critical issue is speed. With the smaller board, you have to be moving faster when reaching for the strap with the back foot. If not, you will place too much weight on the tail of the board, which will cause it to sink, stall and head up into the wind.

You may also want to measur the distance between the front and back straps on both boards to see if there is a difference. IF you have to reach a longer distance on your smaller board, that may be part of the problem.

For me it's difficult to get into the back strap on a beam reach because I can't get much weight off my back foot, but if I head up a bit, then I can get more weight on the front foot and harness to free up my back foot. Careful not to head up too or you stall, maybe 30 degrees.

I also place my back foot on the board in front of the strap before heading up, so that I don't have to move it far to get into the strap. With lots of repetition, the step into the strap becomes automatic.

How old are you? Are you planing? I assume you are planing or getting into the straps would be impossible. Since you only weigh 43 kg, I would guess that the foot straps are pretty far apart for your size, plus it's a long reach back to the back strap.

Again, I think you may need more speed on the smaller board, and you have to use the boom / harness and front foot to hold almost all of your weight when you move your back foot. If you can do it on the larger board, I don't see why you can't on the smaller board, if you have enough speed.

Also, with your small sails, you also have short booms, which requires your body to be closer to the mast, which makes the back foot strap far away. You may try moving your mast base back some to shorten the distance to the back strap.

Hi again Jack,
I'm puzzled about your "weight on the front foot" technique.
Try this....
Get your board uphauled and both feet behind the mast foot. Then sheet in a bit to get your board moving on a beam reach.
Then slowy and gradually sheet in your sail while moving back on your board until your back foot is directly over the fore/aft centerline of the board at the sweet spot for your board.
Try to find the "sweet spot" somewhere between the front and back footstraps to place your back foot with virtually all your weight on it. The "sweet spot" will be defined as the place where putting your back foot (with all your weight on it) lifts the nose of your board the right amount so the board slides easily onto a plane.
If you stay too far forward with your weight, the nose won't lift and you won't have any positive "incline" to the planing surfaces on the bottom of your board.
If you move too far back on the board the nose will "pop up" too much and your planing surfaces will be too steep for efficiently getting onto a plane.
When you find the sweet spot place your weight on your back foot while you get your front foot into the front footstrap.
Then hook in and begin to transfer your weight from the back foot/leg onto the rig via the harness and harness lines.
This will develop mast foot pressure to assist the board further in getting onto a plane.
When your board pops onto a plane, then work your back foot further back and into the strap as you sheet in a little more and rake back a little more.
When you are in both footstraps, and all your weight is on the rig, then fully sheet in and lock your rig down close to the deck to "close the gap".
At this point you should be really flying and having a great time.
Also, you have very small sails, (are they wave sails?) and my guess would be that they are designed for larger sailors in =>25 knots of wind.
To achieve what they were designed to do, they purposely do not have very much draft and this can really cause a smaller sailor like yourself some real problems.
Until you grow a bit and can handle larger sails you don't have too many choices.
If you live/sail anywhere near a shop that sells Sailworks Retro Rippers, you might want to give them a try.
They are very powerful for their size (about twice as powerful as equivalent area wave sails or soft trainer sails) and come with Ripper Stick short lightweight reduced diameter masts that are perfect for up and coming superstars like yourself.
Hope this helps,

I've had great experience with the Retro Ripper sails for my kids. I now own a 5.0, a 4.2, and a 3.3, and the 5.0 and 4.2 are the sails my wife and daughter use almost exclusively. They love the combination of light feel and good power. They use the 5.0 up to 10 or 12 knots, and the 4.2 up to about 15 knots. (They both cheerfully trade "always planing" for "lighter and never overpowered".)

So will the Jp 84 or the Fanatic work for me as my go to board with my 5.2 and my 4.6?? It sounds like you two sail those boards down to the 4 meter range. If I could do that too, I could use an 85 FSW for 75 of my sailing. Cool.
My RRD 94 becomes a bit large with a 4.6, so When I try to travel with it, from say the Event site to Wells island it becomes a bit much by the time I get to the bridge. The Open Ocean is a bit sinky in any type of gusty conditions so I end up trying to slog up to the bridge and back.
I am thinking that a 85 litre FSW would be about perfect.
I have been demoing boards this summer but I have been looking at small boards and just recently have thought that maybe that is the wrong tactic.

Hi KMF,
How much do you weigh?
I've sailed the Gorge a bit, on boards down to 90 liters and I weigh 170-180 lbs.
Since the Gorge is almost always gusty and the wind varies quite a bit from one side of the river to the other, it would seem that having a couple of boards, one around 85-90
liters and another smaller board for 4.6 and down would be a better quiver than a 94 liter RRd and a much smaller Open Ocean,
On the other hand, I've sailed the Gorge alot on bigger boards and much bigger sails, so having only < 100 liter boards and 5.2 as your largest sail would limit the number of days you can sail significantly.
Again all of this depends alot on how much you weigh, and whether or not you enjoy sailing in < 18 knots of wind.
Hope this helps,